Posição taxonômica de populações de Scinax Wagler, 1830 (Anura, Hylidae) relacionadas à S. fuscomarginatus (Lutz, 1925) de Uberlândia: avaliações morfométricas e acústicas

Abstract

Scinax fuscomarginatus is a widely distributed species in Brazil, which was believed to represent a species complex, due its substantial morphological variation. Otherwise, a recent taxonomic change based in morphology, bioacoustics and mainly genetics, discards this species complex idea, and synonymizes four species with S. fuscomarginatus, including S. pusillus, a recently described species and endemics of the Brazilian Cerrado. In fieldworks in the municipality of Uberlândia (MG), we verified the syntonic occurrence of two populations closely related to S. fuscomarginatus, morphologically similar but with distinct advertisement calls, highlighting the idea that S. pusillus may represent a valid species. Therefore, the study herein presented aims to clarify the real taxonomic identity of these two populations, based on acoustic and morphometric analysis of data from municipalities of Uberlândia and Rio Verde (GO) (type locality of S. pusillus). The results of the analysis show that morphometric and acoustic differences detected between the two morphotypes are sufficient to support the revalidation of S. pusillus. Acoustic features such as pulse period, pulse rate, minimum and maximum frequency, and also morphometric traits such as head width, hand length and snout-vent length, were important in species discrimination.